Iowa and Wisconsin

JULY 4
Happy 4th of July! We’re traveling to Tomah, Wisconsin, where Mom has a friend we’re staying with. It may or may not be better than a hotel, but in any case, we get free food and a fireworks show.

Today we saw the Hogback Bridge in Iowa. It’s one of the bridges in Bridges of Madison County. Anyone seen it? Mom has but the rest of us haven’t. The bridge wasn’t what we expected. It was rather disappointing, but that’s fineJ.

We also saw John Wayne’s house in Iowa. This house was where he was born and raised. It was interesting. It was small and quaint.

We went to a little town called Walnut, Iowa. It was an old town, so it had a lot of old fashioned houses. They looked so cute. I like old houses. I just would like to have the modern conveniences inside. The house inside could still look old fashioned, but it would have heaters and microwaves and other stuff. I want to live in an old fashioned house at some point in my life.

We’re planning on seeing Mason City, Iowa. This is where Meredith Wilson was born and filmed The Music Man. I’m pretty excited to see it.

Tomorrow we’re going to Noah’s Ark. It is the largest water park in the US, or at least it was when I did my state report in 5th grade. I’m not really sure if it still is the largest. In any case, I’m excited to see it and play around.

According to Brooke, we agreed on having a dollar day and a salad day. That means one day we only eat food under a dollar. Another day we only eat salads. I don’t remember this, but today is salad day. So for lunch (we got up late), we had a dollar Caesar salad from Wendy’s. Now we’re all hungry again because the salads were small. Also, I’ve been dying for fruit lately so we got a fruit plate too. Did you know that Disneyland sells pretty good fruit? I had some in Adventureland (pineapple), and it was delicious! I loved it. It was almost as good as Hawaii’s pineapples. I hope there is good fruit inn Disney World. As for following our dollar and salad days, we haven’t been very good. Today is the only day we’ve actually followed so far. Of course, the day isn’t over yet.

The next time I type, it’ll be sometime tonight, so I’ll have seen Mason City and hopefully be at the house we’re staying at.

Well, Meredith Wilson’s house and Music Man Square wasn’t all I hoped it to be. Since it was closed (operating hours Tues-Sun 1-5), we didn’t see much. The outside of the house was cool. And we saw some of the sets used in the Music Man by looking through the windows of a building near the house. There was also a statue of Meredith Wilson. If the place was open, it would have been a lot better, but it is a holiday and a Monday, so it wouldn’t have been open anyway.

We aren’t going to get to our sleeping place until about 8:00. Brooke and I both said we would get there about then, but Mom insisted it would be 4:00. Brooke and I win!

New fact I just learned from my grandma. I am related to Meredith Wilson. Yes that’s right; the man who wrote The Music Man is related to me. My grandma’s cousin’s mother married a guy directly related to Meredith Wilson. So I guess in reality I’m not really related, but we’ll pretend.

Also, we drove past Drake University and my great-grandfather went there.

As for college visits, we haven’t had many. We’ve driven past some, but we haven’t stopped and visited. We probably should, but we’re already slightly behind schedule. So, the only colleges we’re visiting on our itinerary are Elizabeth’s (because we’re visiting her) and Northwestern (because my aunt is giving a tour because my cousins have gone there in the past and other cousins might go there in the future).

My family and I are writing down all of the state license plates we come across. I think we might see all of them because we only have 8 states left and we got Alaska and Hawaii. It’s kind of fun to see what states we got when. It’s a nice family activity.

So when I said free food, I lied. We paid the lady money who cooked us our dinner. It was really good food. We had brats and kraut on hot dog buns. I don’t like hot dogs or sausage but I liked this. Then we had spice cake for dessert. It was delicious. Dad had some beer and Mom had some wine. It was a, “I can’t refuse or else be rude” situation, so Brooke and I decided that I am driving tomorrow! Yeah, just kidding. I have no idea where we’re going so, Dad will drive. Don’t worry; he only had one little glass.

I rode an electric bike. It was pretty cool. You pedal to get speed and then press a lever and you go even faster and don’t have to pedal. It’s pretty nifty.

Anyway, that’s it for tonight. I’ll type tomorrow.

JULY 5
First off, it’s my mom’s birthday today. For her birthday present, we gave her a giant jaw breaker and a fun time at Noah’s Ark.

Noah’s Ark was awesome. It is indeed the largest water park in the US. There were so many slides and things to do. It was a very big park. We went in the biggest wave pool (they have two pools) first. Then we went on a few slides. One was called The Stingray. It is a two or one person ride. It is shaped like a stingray so you slide down one end and your force pushes you up the other side. Depending on the weight determines how far up the other side you go, the more weight equals higher up. Brooke didn’t like this ride too much, but the rest of us loved it. Another ride we went on was called The Anaconda. It is the largest watercoaster in the US. That was fun. Brooke liked this one much better. We also went on a ride much like Splash Mountain (drop only). It was a boat fitting about 20 people in it that went up and then dropped liked Splash Mountain does. It soaked you. There was a bridge you could stand on if you didn’t want to ride but wanted to get wet. One suggesting I have is to drink water. If you get a complimentary glass with your meal, it is filtered so it’s not bad at all and it’s free. So don’t buy a water bottle, just get a glass of water with your meal. Out of all the slides and pools, I’d say the wave pool was the best. We all enjoyed it the most. On a good note, I didn’t get burned. Of course I didn’t get tan either, but I’d rather suffer no tan instead of suffering a burn which will only turn back to white anyway. Overall, Noah’s Ark is a great place. I had a lot of fun. If you ever get the chance, I suggest coming here.

At Noah’s Ark, there was only one unpleasant thing…an older larger man in a Speedo. I don’t need to see another man like that in a Speedo ever again. I saw this man twice and both times weren’t very pretty.

We spent 6 hours at Noah’s Ark. That’s a lot for a water park for me. But it was so much fun.

Now we’re traveling to Watertown, Wisconsin. This is where our relatives used to live and it’s also where the Octagon house is. Our relatives lived just down the block from the Octagon house. Both were pretty cool.

I slept horribly this morning/last night. Brooke and I slept on a hide-a-bed. It was very uncomfortable. After tossing and turning for a while, I finally got a few hours of sleep before waking up. It was about 6:00 AM. I tried sleeping again, but Brooke was breathing heavily and the bed seemed as uncomfortable as ever. So I went to where my parents were sleeping and lay on the floor. After about 10 minutes, Mom and Dad woke up and after telling them what was up with me not sleeping, Dad offered to sleep on the hide-a-bed and I took his spot. It took a long time to get back asleep, but finally, after much more tossing and turning, I got to sleep a few more hours. Once up, Dad agreed that the bed was very uncomfortable. But, as Mom reminded us (though more for herself), we suffered last night in order to be able to go to Noah’s Ark. So that’s another reason I’m looking forward to getting to the hotel.

Our new favorite CD is Wicked. So by the end of the trip, Brooke and I will most likely know the whole CD by heart. Our favorite songs are Loathing, Dancing Through Life, and Popular. All of them have their funny moments. Popular is hilarious and I think I’ll sing it next year for something, whether that be NATS, Variety Show, or both. Loathing is such a great song. Michelle, we should sing that sometime…even if it’s just for fun and not for anything really. Also another good song is For Good. Michelle, I’d like to sing that song too sometime. When, I don’t know, but sometime. Brooke just told me that Loathing is the perfect song for herself and me. Sometimes it’s true…ok, just kidding.

For dinner, we ate at Perkins. It’s been our first sit down meal in a while. We were overwhelmed at what to choose. Everything looked good.

We now have a problem. After the wedding, our cousins are having a family reunion in St. Louis, Missouri. Why is this a problem? This means that seeing Elizabeth might not be an option. Mom says we’re going to make it work. We might not even visit the cousins, but it’s not really a big deal in my opinion because 1) we’re seeing them at the wedding and 2) in December we’re going to St. Louis for another cousin’s wedding (the one who is hosting the reunion this trip). Apparently, we had already said we were going to visit the cousins, but I wasn’t informed about this, so I had no idea about visiting the cousins. Brooke’s fighting hard to visit the cousins because she says it’s rude to say we’re coming and then on short notice say we’re not. I agree, but if we’re going to see them in December, it’s not as bad as not seeing them ever. I’m kind of irritated because she slyly asked me if I really wanted to visit the college or was the reason for going to visit Elizabeth. The latter is more true, but I am interested in the college. If she had a friend in another state so close to where we were, she would want to visit them and she would complain constantly until she got her way. That’s what makes me irritated. But Mom says we’re visiting Elizabeth no matter what. The cousin thing is possible to make, it just means more driving.

Besides the few quirks, the day overall has been awesome.